When did ET racing start? (1 Viewer)

[Cliff]

Was reading the post about Stock & S/S becoming a bracket race. Anyone have a year when bracket racing started? I ran my beater '58 Ford at San Fernando in 1968-69, ran Bracket 7, which was like 15 seconds & slower, so I know ET racing existed then. I remember seeing a race at my Air Force Base is Roswell, NM, mid 1960's. Base commander let us use an old runway as a drag strip. They did handicap races, but it was like the slower car was given (as example) 5 car lengths on the track & faster car had to catch him. They both started at the same time. The car that was already out on the track got no ET. There were no breaks outs. So I hafta guess that "handicap racing" started in the 1960's and went from there.

 

[TopFuel@Lions]

I think Pappy started it at least in So Cal at Lions.


TopFuel@Lions

 

[Pete]

From memory, I believe Ted Jones started bracket racing as a way to increase purses and eliminate the inordinate amount of heads up classes on a given weekly level race weekend...maybe around the St. Louis area?

 

[ol21stud]

Bracket racing in St. Louis started sometime between 69-71. When I was drafted in 69, class racing was still the thing. When I came back from Vietnam it was bracket racing with .10 second brackets as the Alton Dragway, St. Louis Int'l Raceway and MAR clocks couldn't do handicap starts. If my memory is correct, bracket racing was started by Ron Leek who owned Byron Dragway in Illinois. He died a couple years ago. Bret Kepner would know with his "incredible" memory and stats keeping.

 

[Cliff]

Hi Phil. My younger brother Mike is a Nam Vet. He was Army, at a place called Bearcat. I was Air Force, just stayed USA all 4 years. My brother went Army cuz I had been military. Oh, our Mom was a Marine in WWII.

 

[ol21stud]

Hi Phil. My younger brother Mike is a Nam Vet. He was Army, at a place called Bearcat. I was Air Force, just stayed USA all 4 years. My brother went Army cuz I had been military. Oh, our Mom was a Marine in WWII.

So are your grandkids are joining the Navy and Space Force so your family will cover all the "bases". I was a grunt rto that worked out of the firebases between Tay Nyhn and the Cambodian border (plus the first 30 of the USA's 60 days in Cambodia). It was excellent prep for operating drag strips..

 

[Cliff]

I never had kids, so no grandkids. Both my brother & myself got married later in life. However I do have an adopted family, & they are very much military. Oldest nephew retired from USAF as LtCol, and another got to T/SGT & became an officer (USAF), retired as Capt. Lessee, cousins in USAF, which Is why I picked Air Force. My brother joined Army so he wouldn't get drafted. If I could go back in Air Force at my age (heh) I would go for the Space Command. Get up there & "go toe to toe with the Ruskies" (Maj Kong in Dr Strangelove) I was in SAC all 4 years. First base, Walker AFB in Roswell, NM (yes THAT Roswell) we had B-52 bombers w/ nukes. My last base, Malmstrom AFB in Great Falls, Montana, we had Minutemen Missles, bigger nukes that replaced the old Atlas missles. My main site was Echo One, in Judith Gap, Montana. They had a general store that sold everything from ammo to jeans to food to whatever. The town is still there, even has a web site. Oh, my brother was a medic and flew as a door gunner on a Huey to earn extra pay ($45 month). We used Hueys in Montana to go to the missle sites. We were coming back to base one day & transmission seized on the Huey & we made a forced landing. That got my attention. argh

 

[M Jones]

I never had kids, so no grandkids. Both my brother & myself got married later in life. However I do have an adopted family, & they are very much military. Oldest nephew retired from USAF as LtCol, and another got to T/SGT & became an officer (USAF), retired as Capt. Lessee, cousins in USAF, which Is why I picked Air Force. My brother joined Army so he wouldn't get drafted. If I could go back in Air Force at my age (heh) I would go for the Space Command. Get up there & "go toe to toe with the Ruskies" (Maj Kong in Dr Strangelove) I was in SAC all 4 years. First base, Walker AFB in Roswell, NM (yes THAT Roswell) we had B-52 bombers w/ nukes. My last base, Malmstrom AFB in Great Falls, Montana, we had Minutemen Missles, bigger nukes that replaced the old Atlas missles. My main site was Echo One, in Judith Gap, Montana. They had a general store that sold everything from ammo to jeans to food to whatever. The town is still there, even has a web site. Oh, my brother was a medic and flew as a door gunner on a Huey to earn extra pay ($45 month). We used Hueys in Montana to go to the missle sites. We were coming back to base one day & transmission seized on the Huey & we made a forced landing. That got my attention. argh

God bless you all for service

 

[flapjack]

I never had kids, so no grandkids. Both my brother & myself got married later in life. However I do have an adopted family, & they are very much military. Oldest nephew retired from USAF as LtCol, and another got to T/SGT & became an officer (USAF), retired as Capt. Lessee, cousins in USAF, which Is why I picked Air Force. My brother joined Army so he wouldn't get drafted. If I could go back in Air Force at my age (heh) I would go for the Space Command. Get up there & "go toe to toe with the Ruskies" (Maj Kong in Dr Strangelove) I was in SAC all 4 years. First base, Walker AFB in Roswell, NM (yes THAT Roswell) we had B-52 bombers w/ nukes. My last base, Malmstrom AFB in Great Falls, Montana, we had Minutemen Missles, bigger nukes that replaced the old Atlas missles. My main site was Echo One, in Judith Gap, Montana. They had a general store that sold everything from ammo to jeans to food to whatever. The town is still there, even has a web site. Oh, my brother was a medic and flew as a door gunner on a Huey to earn extra pay ($45 month). We used Hueys in Montana to go to the missle sites. We were coming back to base one day & transmission seized on the Huey & we made a forced landing. That got my attention. argh

Now that we've derailed the thread...

Friend of mine that served in the Navy on an Aegis class cruiser, when I asked him if they had nuclear tipped cruise missiles, said "I can neither confirm not deny the presence of nuclear weapons aboard this vessel". I would tend to think there is something similar for the other branches of the military. The technology behind nuclear weapons (I read a lot about them when in high school - Richard Rhodes books in particular) is "technically sweet", as Robert Oppenheimer once said, but man they scare the sh!t out of me.

 

[Cliff]

Well, to kinda get back on the thread, I got out of USAF in 1968, went straight to Lions and San Fernando & started racing my beater '58 Ford 4 door. Hey I went 16.86 @ 86 MPH on street tires. I even beat a Mustang in round one. Fernando ran open exhaust only from 12 noon - 3 PM, so we ran the early morning brackets on mufflers. After 3 PM, when all the dragsters and what have you had run, then we went back to mufflers. I remember running round one & I was so nervous, my right leg was shaking. First round jitters. I ran the '58 at San Fernando only. Then had a '66 Ford Falcon, straight 6, 3 on the tree, ran consistant 20.20 ET. Argh Was once the slowest car at Lions. Yes I had the guts to run that poor old Ford at Lions. Then the 1971 Pinto, which was almost as quick as the 58 Ford. Ran at Lions and the old Irwindale. That was my racing career, ended around 1974. But I did get to run Lions and that is a great memory. All 3 cars ran the slow ET bracket, which I think was around 15.00 - 25 seconds. The fast cars at Lions ran bracket one, 9.90's to around 10.99 I think. Loved to watch those guys. Vintage GTO, 1940 Pontiac with rat motor, low 10's.

 

[Cliff]

Fan fotos: SoCal doorslammers

Long before there were nitro Funny Cars and even what we know as Top Fuel dragsters, door cars and roadsters often attracted the same fanatic love to which we now assign the nitro cars. I know that I have a fuel-racing mentality – particularly for 1970s-era Funny Cars -- but I also love a good...

www.nhra.com

Found this on Dragster Insider. I thought there were more photos, but a lot of these cars were regulars at ET racing.

 

[ol21stud]

My 3rd year of college... before I got drafted... my best friend and I raced a ratty old 54 Mercury with a 394 Olds with stock cast iron manifolds and other junkyard parts to a whopping 13.84. My daily driver was a 62 TR4 that ran 16.8's which wasn't bad for a 120 ci 4 cylinder back then. One week when Wild Bill Shrewsberry's Hemi Under Glass was coming to Alton Dragway, I just had to go see it but both the cars were down (TR4 for another stock clutch). I realized it was $4. to watch and just a $1. more to race so I borrowed my sisters car. Driving it like it wasn't mine, her 1960 4dr. Studebaker Lark, column shift, flat head 6 stormed the quarter mile in 22.64 seconds for the trophy. (Yes, I told her... oh... 39 years later While I was in the service a couple years later my wife sold all my trophies at a garage sale for ten cents apiece. ...Doubt I could have got her to dust them for the next 50 years anyway.

 

[Cliff]

Dang, the Lark was slower than my Falcon. Now I don't feel so bad. HA Oh, once racing the Falcon at Lions, I blew a freeze plug. Stuffed paper towels in the hole and made it back home. Probably helped that it was at night.

 

[FABMAN]

Bracket racing in St. Louis started sometime between 69-71. When I was drafted in 69, class racing was still the thing. When I came back from Vietnam it was bracket racing with .10 second brackets as the Alton Dragway, St. Louis Int'l Raceway and MAR clocks couldn't do handicap starts. If my memory is correct, bracket racing was started by Ron Leek who owned Byron Dragway in Illinois. He died a couple years ago. Bret Kepner would know with his "incredible" memory and stats keeping.

I started Drag Racing in 1970 at KCIR and Bracket Racing was running strong as was class racing. AHRA

 

[sammi]

My dad and his partner ran a '57 Chevy in Bracket 2 at OCIR in 1968. 292ci, tunnel ram and a 4 speed. It ran low 11's at 115mph. It was an NHRA legal D/G car. The night we won Bracket 2, we got through 5 rounds and won $25 and a case of oil. Amazingly the car didn' t have a crossover box, bump up or down buttons or emergency nitrous shots. I always hung around in the stands and watched Bracket 1 and 2 cars run at the tracks around SoCal as a kid. You saw a wide variety of cars, from low buck flathead dragsters to high end super stockers and fledgling pro stockers. An early iteration of Bill Bagshaw's Red Light Bandit was a regular at OCIR.